NYT's Carr puts the spotlight on Washington Post publisher

11/19/12 10:40 AM EST

The New York Times’ David Carr on Sunday hammered Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth for her handling of the switch from Marcus Brauchli as executive editor to Martin Baron.

“It is an inopportune time for The Post to stumble. Ms. Weymouth’s move is akin to switching drivers just as the car is sputtering to a stop,” Carr wrote in his Sunday column. “Print, and more ominously, digital advertising revenue is in decline, circulation is in a dive and the newspaper’s ‘for and about Washington’ editorial strategy has left employees underwhelmed. Now Ms. Weymouth seems to be upending the loyalty and accountability that has been a hallmark of her family’s ownership of the newspaper.”

Carr wrote that although Weymouth may have made a good decision by selecting Baron, “four years into her tenure at the top, she still seems to be struggling to get a grasp on a huge job at a company whose journalism has at times altered the course of a nation.”

“Brauchli may not have been the perfect person to lead the newsroom in entropic times, but the way the switch was made raised questions about Ms. Weymouth’s maturity and steadfastness as an operational leader,” Carr wrote.

Still, he wrote, The Post remains “an important player.”

“It is not what it once was, but it isn’t nothing either. Ms. Weymouth’s continued misfires, along with the lack of success in generating new revenue, however, have left the newspaper staring down the gun barrel of deep cuts and a business model in free fall,” he wrote.